Obsession in simple terms it is the act of being obsessed with someone or something; to be unable to control an idea or thought that continually runs through and consumes the mind. There are many types of obsession as well as different levels, however, in the short stories The tell-tale heart and Berenice it is clearly apparent that both narrators suffer from a severe monomania, more specifically of facial attributes. In “Berenice” the narrator of this story, Egaeus, suffers from a type of obsessive disorder, a disease that makes him fixate on objects. His cousin Berenice in the beginning beautiful, but later suffers from some undetermined degenerative illness, with periods of catalepsy, that he calls trances. However, they are due to be …show more content…
The next time he becomes aware of things around him, filled with terror, he finds a lamp and a small box in front of him. Another servant enters, telling him that a grave has been disturbed, and a shrouded disfigured body found, still alive. Egaeus finds himself covered in mud and blood, and opens the box to find it encloses dental instruments and "32 small, white and ivory-looking substances" – Berenice's teeth. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is told by an unidentified narrator who insists he is perfectly sane but suffers from nervousness that causes "over-acuteness of the senses". The old man that the narrator lives with has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which drives him insane literally and figuratively. It bothers him so much that he plots to murder the old man, even though he says that he loves him, and hates only his blind eye. The narrator, though the opposite is apparent, insists that his meticulousness in committing the murder shows that he can’t possibly be insane. “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” (Kennedy, p.187) For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of